| 1. |
- Beckman, Ludvig, 1970-
(författare)
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The Accuracy of Electoral Regulations : The Case of the Right to Vote by People with Cognitive Impairments
- 2014
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; 13:2, s. 221-233
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- People with cognitive impairments are regularly denied access to the vote in democraticnations. At the same time, the accuracy of legal regulations is uncertain due to thevariety of legal classifications and the vague administrative procedures envisaged for theirimplementation. This article offers an extensive analysis of the accuracy of legal restrictionson the vote for people with cognitive impairments in all electoral democracies. The articleargues that the prospect of ever regulating the vote accurately, in the sense of avoidingboth misclassifications and arbitrary administration of restrictions, is difficult to envisage.In the face of the regulatory problems associated with the attempt to restrict the votefor people with cognitive impairment, it is concluded that enfranchisement of all adultcitizens would constitute an improvement.
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| 2. |
- Cronert, Axel, 1986-
(författare)
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The Multi-Tool Nature of Active Labour Market Policy and its Implications for Partisan Politics in Advanced Democracies
- 2022
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; 21:2, s. 210-226
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Active labour market policy (ALMP) has emerged as a major topic of inquiry among comparative scholars in recent decades, alongside other social investments. However, few conclusive results have been produced regarding the political explanations of these policies, and not least the role of partisan politics. To help remedy this problem, this article proposes a new understanding of ALMP as a profoundly versatile set of ‘multi-purpose tools’ that policymakers across the political spectrum can use as a means to very different distributional ends. Specifically, it highlights how ALMP programmes vary in terms of 1) their target groups, 2) their intended labour market outcomes, and 3) their modes of production in politically salient ways. Informed by the new framework and by recent research, the article then develops a refined theory about how governments with different left–right placement, operating under economic and institutional constraints, affect ALMP development in different directions.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Greve, Bent, et al.
(författare)
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How Have the Nordic Welfare States Responded to the Unexpected Increase in Inflation?
- 2023
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; , s. 1-13
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rising inflation in the Nordic societies has changed the living standards for many families. The situation differs not only between the four Nordic countries analysed, but even within each of the Nordic countries. The needs for intervention have varied. Several elements have been used to determine who is facing the most risks. This article shows how to combine automatic stabilisers with temporary policy interventions to deal with increased inflation in general or specific sub-elements (such as oil, natural gas). Focus is on the degree of and criteria for targeting. Possible distributional consequences of the adopted measures will be discussed. Lastly, the article considers whether the observed responses to the crisis have implications for the understanding of the Nordic welfare state model. The article investigates institutional, political and economic reasons for the variations in the interventions. The article concludes that in managing the crisis, the Nordic countries have adopted stronger targeting towards those considered to be in need, displaying some innovations in their social policy approach. Yet, one can trace a high degree of path-dependency, with the countries adhering to universalist principles, with an aim of redistributing resources.
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| 5. |
- Lindblom, Jonas, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Othering in Media Representations of Elderly Care : Using the Social Justice Framework to Make Sense of Public Discourses on Migrants and Culture
- 2022
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; 21:2, s. 275-297
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Population ageing and international migration are two of the major societal trends challenging European elderly care regimes at present. Virtually no research has addressed how public discourses about the implications of these trends for elderly care are shaped in different countries. This article addresses this knowledge gap, examining how Swedish daily newspaper (SvD and DN) reporting on elderly care between 1995 and 2017 (N=370) depicts the impact of increased ethno-cultural diversity on this sector. Through content analysis, this article brings attention to the representations of migrants and culture that this reporting has deployed, and the rhetorical practices that the reporting has relied on (i.e. genre stratification, hegemonisation, homogenisation, normative referencing and idealisation/ diminishment). The article exposes how the ‘Othering’ of migrants is accomplished in Sweden’s daily newspaper reporting on elderly care, and problematizes the ethea of inclusiveness and equality of care with which we have come to associate this welfare sector.
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| 6. |
- Littmarck, Sofia, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
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Negotiating Parenting Support: Welfare Politics in Sweden between the 1960s and the 2000s
- 2018
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; 17:3, s. 491-502
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Parent education surfaced as a political question in Sweden in the 1960s and support for parents has since remained on the political agenda. Despite different views on the ideal relationship between the welfare state, the family and children, support for parents has been advocated by parties from all over the political spectrum. By tracing the political debate, this article addresses the question of how the notion of support for parents was adapted to different political ideas, ideologies and ways of defining the relationship between state, family and children from the 1960s until the 2000s in Sweden. We analyse the arguments that different political parties offered and the varying meanings attributed to terms like ‘parent education’ (föräldrautbildning) and ‘parenting support’ (föräldrastöd) during three different phases in the transformation of the Swedish welfare state: the final period of its expansion in the 1960s and 1970s; the economic crisis and retrenchments of welfare services in the 1990s; and the era of individual responsibility in the 2000s. Support for parents has been actualised as a solution to different social and political problems and the notions of parent education and parenting support have proven the capacity to accommodate different political ideas, ideologies and visions.
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| 7. |
- Nordensvärd, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Rethinking the Consumer Metaphor versus the Citizen Metaphor : Frame Merging and Higher Education Reform in Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; 18:4, s. 555-575
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neoliberal metaphors of students often describe students as consumers, managers and even as commodities, but this analysis often disregards the discursive complexity of education. We argue that frame merging is essential to understand the hybrid modalities of neoliberal images of students in the Swedish context, where the image of the student is suspended between a social democratic welfare service model, academic capitalism, new public management and welfare nationalism. We demonstrate this through the case study of introducing student fees for non-Ell students in Swedish higher education, and how the merging of universal tax financing with a more individualised fee paying solution creates variegated and complex metaphors of students and higher education. These metaphors are infused with social democratic social citizenship, neoliberal reform of welfare services, academic capitalism and nationalist welfare chauvinism. This implies that, in practice, it is nigh on impossible to disentangle the neoliberal consumer metaphor from that of social citizenship; instead they merge to generate multiple contextually relevant metaphors to fit the local debates in higher education.
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| 8. |
- Nygren, Karina, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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The Notion of Family in Lithuanian and Swedish Social Legislation
- 2018
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; 17:4, s. 651-663
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines the conceptualisation of family in key social legislative documents guiding social workers in two European countries, whose welfare systems have previously been labelled as re-familialised (Lithuania) or de-familialised (Sweden). The focus is on the concept of family as delineated on three legislative levels: the constitutional level, the general family policy level, and the child welfare policy level. ‘Family’ is explicit in Lithuanian law, and the regulation of family formation and responsibility is imperative, while this is much less so in Swedish law. The analysis reveals how general welfare systems (regime-types) are linked to legislative frameworks, which, in turn, provide fundamentally different conditions for social work in different contexts.
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| 9. |
- Nygren, Lennart, et al.
(författare)
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Investigating welfare regime typologies : Paradoxes, pitfalls and potentialities in comparative social work research
- 2018
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; 17:4, s. 665-677
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The article reviews the relevance and methodological utility of welfare regime typologies for the study of professional sense-making in social work with families. Focus groups were carried out with social workers in European and Latin American countries representing four different policy regimes. A case vignette was used to elicit social workers’ descriptions of how welfare policy may influence how they understand their work task and the notion of family. The research team identified methodological challenges of general relevance in similar policy-practice studies. There were paradoxes in terms of homogeneity on the regime level vs. heterogeneity within and between national services. Pitfalls appeared in the selection of regime-typical cases, language/cultural barriers, and in deciding organisational level. The article shows that welfare typologies have potentialities in that they may provide a helpful analytical basis for theoretical and practical reasoning in which syntheses between policy and practice can be explored, discussed and challenged.
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| 10. |
- Saxonberg, Steven, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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Does Performance Matter? : The Influence of Attitudes Towards Welfare State Performance on Voting for Rightwing and Leftwing Populist Parties
- 2024
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Society. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In recent decades, populist parties and leaders have obtained great political success. Since populism plays on voter dissatisfaction with the political elite, we might expect that dissatisfaction with the welfare state should also play a role. In this study, we suggest measures to assess welfare state performance (WSP), and we examine how assessment of WSP helps to explain support for the populist political parties– both rightwing and leftwing. Our findings are based on the sixth round of European Social Survey data that has a special module on democracy, which includes questions that enables us to measure WSP. This article shows that WSPis a significant predictor in explaining support for populist parties, but the dynamics differ between how WSP influences support for leftwing populist (LWP) and rightwing populist (RWP) parties.
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